An age-old motif runs through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that goes all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing a fortune to trap the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Film Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while leveraging deepfakes and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, contrasts the tough people of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit lavish sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the lighthearted comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about planetary doom — for financial gain, of course.
It is not especially new in a series of movies taking it as a given that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his always poor beloved underdog against fat cats, industrialists, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is incompatible with basic human values, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion politicians react to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with competence and importance, even after decades of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that gets in the way of real-world action. Offered a frequent serving of mostly uplifting tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away feeling good about good conquering evil. These stories are like ethical parables, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A Sharper Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more direct, and apparently more violent. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, likely due to it’s become so clear that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exceptions
There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
